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26 February, 2010

A post today about the children of Richard Fitzalan (1267-1302), earl of Arundel and son of Isabella Mortimer from a recent post, and his Italian wife Alesia di Saluzzo, granddaughter of a queen of Sicily, first cousin of two kings of Aragon and sister of the governor of Sardinia.Thispost includes: Richard being excommunicated twice; Edward II arresting Henry Percy because of Piers Gaveston's death; Stephen Segrave being poisoned by Roger Mortimer; John Segrave writing a sycophantic letter to Hugh Despenser the Younger.

The poet of the Roll of Arms of Caerlaverock in 1300 - the man who waxed lyrical about the wonders of Lord Clifford - said this about Richard Fitzalan: "Richard, the earl of Arundel/A handsome and well-loved knight/I saw there richly armed/In red, with a gold lion rampant." (Richart le conte de Arondel/Beau chevalier et bien amé/ I vi-je richement armé/En rouge, au lyon rampant de or). [1] Richard's arms can be seen here. An interesting fact about him: he was twice excommunicated (and absolved) by Gilbert de St Leofard, bishop of Chichester, for hunting without permission in the bishop's woods. [2] You'd think Richard might have learnt his lesson the first time, especially as he had to make a humiliating submission to Gilbert in order to gain absolution.

Earl Richard: What shall we do today? I know! Let's go hunting in the bishop of Chichester's woods!
Earl Richard's servant: Ummm, I'm not sure that's such a good idea, my lord. Remember what happened the last time.
Earl Richard: The excommunication, you mean? Oh, that was just a silly misunderstanding. I'm sure the bishop won't mind this time.

Although the date of Richard's death is often given, even in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and the Complete Peerage, as 9 March 1302, he in fact died a little earlier than that, shortly before 15 January 1302, on which date the escheator was ordered to take his lands into the king's hand. An entry on the Close Roll of 2 February 1302 confirms that Richard was already dead then: he owed Edward I £1000, and the king sent his serjeant William Persone to select the "better and more beautiful horses" from Richard's stud-farms in Clun and Oswestry in part payment of the debt. [3] Richard was buried next to his wife, who died in 1292 in her early or mid-twenties, at Haughmond Abbey near Shrewsbury, burial place of many of the Fitzalans. He was the last of his family in the Middle Ages to use the name Fitzalan on a regular basis, and his descendants in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries usually just called themselves Arundel or de Arundel.

Eleanor (Alianore), Lady Percy

It is not completely 100% certain that Eleanor Percy was Earl Richard's daughter as no contemporary source connects the two beyond doubt, although the Alnwick chronicle and a genealogy of the Percy family in the Whitby Chartulary (see here) name Eleanor as a daughter of the earl of Arundel, which can only mean Richard. Some websites say that Eleanor was the daughter of John Fitzalan and Isabella Mortimer and thus Richard's sister, but as John Fitzalan was never earl of Arundel, this doesn't fit. Eleanor Percy was certainly born an Arundel, Edward II acknowledged her as 'the king's kinswoman' on numerous occasions, [4] and the fact that she married Lord Percy is indirect proof that she was of high rank and therefore most likely to be the earl's daughter, not from a cadet branch of the family. Assuming that Alesia di Saluzzo was Eleanor's mother, Eleanor and Edward II were third cousins once removed via common descent from the counts of Savoy; without the Saluzzo connection you have to go all the way back to the eleventh century to find a common ancestor. Richard, earl of Arundel acknowledged a debt of 2000 marks to Henry Percy in August 1300, presumably Eleanor's dowry (Richard paid the same amount to Bishop Robert Burnell for his sister Maud's marriage to the bishop's nephew Philip in 1283), and Henry Percy acknowledged in November 1313 that he had received full payment of all debts from Richard's son and heir Edmund. [5]

Eleanor's husband Henry, Lord Percy was born around 25 March 1273 as the posthumous son of Henry Percy - the family was not imaginative with names - and through his mother was the grandson of John de Warenne, earl of Surrey (1231-1304). Given that Eleanor and Henry's first child, another Henry who married Idonea Clifford, was born in February 1301, this probably means that Eleanor was the eldest child of Earl Richard and Alesia, older than her brother Earl Edmund (born 1 May 1285) and born about 1283 or 1284. If she was born before her brother, Earl Richard can only have been sixteen or seventeen at the time, but his grandfather Roger Mortimer (died 1282) and first cousin Roger Mortimer (died 1330) also became fathers at the age of about sixteen. I wonder if Eleanor was named after Queen Eleanor of Castile or Queen Eleanor of Provence, as it wasn't a name used in either of her parents' families. If Eleanor married Henry Percy in or shortly before 1300, as the debt from Earl Richard to Percy indicates, it makes far more sense that she was born in the 1280s rather than 1272, which is the latest she can have been born if she was Earl Richard's sister (as his father John Fitzalan died in March 1272). It would have been extremely unusual for a noblewoman to marry in her late twenties.

EDIT: Thank you to Paul Martin Remfry for kindly providing me with information from the Wigmore Chronicle, which states in 1287 that "The same year about 29 June, a daughter named Eleanor was born to Richard of Arundel." This means that Eleanor was a little more than two years younger than her brother Earl Edmund and considerably younger than her husband, and still only fourteen when her son Henry was born in February 1301. She must have become pregnant very soon after marriage.

Although Henry Percy started Edward II's reign as a household knight and trusted ally of the king, Edward's favouritism towards Piers Gaveston pushed him into opposition, and Henry was one of the men who besieged Piers in Scarborough Castle in May 1312 with, among others, his first cousin the earl of Surrey. The king had on 28 January 1312, shortly after Piers' return to England, rescinded his appointment of Henry as constable of Bamburgh and told the former constable, Lady Vescy, to retain possession, "the king being unwilling that Henry de Percy, to whom he has granted it, should have the custody thereof." Edward replaced Henry as constable of Scarborough Castle at the same time. [6] The king ordered Henry's arrest and seized his lands at the end of July 1312, on the grounds that "upon the surrender of Pieres de Gavaston, earl of Cornwall, at Scardeburgh, [Henry] had gone security for his safety until a certain date, and had not surrendered when the earl was put to death before that time." [7] Not suprisingly Henry declined to fight for Edward at Bannockburn in June 1314, and died shortly before 10 October that year at the age of forty-one, leaving his thirteen-year-old son Henry as his heir. [8] He was buried at Fountains Abbey.

Despite her husband's difficulties with the king, Eleanor Percy herself was on good terms with Edward II, who often acknowledged her as his kinswoman, granted favours at her request and appointed her constable of Scarborough Castle in November 1325 (she was re-appointed in February 1327 at the beginning of Edward III's reign). Eleanor was dead by 13 August 1328, when an entry on the Fine Roll mentions her executors and that her son had been appointed constable of Scarborough. [9]

Born on 1 May 1285 when his father was eighteen and his mother probably younger, married Alice de Warenne, sister of the earl of Surrey and first cousin of his sister's husband Henry Percy, in about 1305 and had children, including his heir Richard, earl of Arundel (c. 1313-1376). Edmund was beheaded with Robert de Micheldever and John Daniel on the orders of his cousin Roger Mortimer in Hereford on 17 November 1326, without a trial and attainted posthumously, because of Mortimer's "perfect hatred" of him. (Mortimer and Isabella demonstrating how their regime would be so much fairer and less tyrannical and capricious than Edward II and Hugh Despenser's.)

Sir Richard de Arundel
Sir Richard was certainly the brother of Eleanor Percy, who was the executor of his will and named as his sister on several occasions, and therefore almost certainly a son of Earl Richard and Countess Alesia, even though nothing definitively connects them. Richard was acknowledged as Edward II's kinsman in at least one writ and was his 'bachelor', or household knight. The Italian banking firm the Ballardi of Lucca acknowledged in June 1311 that they owed Richard 400 marks, and Edward granted him four manors in four counties in April 1314 to provide him with an income of eighty pounds a year. Richard was captured at Bannockburn in June 1314, whereupon Edward II, declaring himself desirous "to hasten his delivery from the hands of the Scots," appointed keepers of Richard's lands and told them to keep his goods safe for his eventual return. Richard was dead by 24 November 1314, whether still in captivity in Scotland or back in England, I'm not sure. I haven't found a mention of any children, and his manors were taken back into the king's hand. His sister Eleanor Percy was repairing the bridge at Wetherby in 1316 "for the good of the soul of the said Richard." [10]

Master John de Arundel

The second or third son of Earl Richard and Countess Alesia and probably born in 1290, as a letter of Pope Clement V says that he was fifteen and "having only the first tonsure" in January 1306. [11] Numerous other papal letters and entries in the chancery rolls confirm that John - presumably named after his grandfather John Fitzalan, lord of Clun and Oswestry - was Earl Richard's son. He held degrees in canon and civil law and was a papal chaplain, canon of Lincoln, Lichfield, York and Chichester, warden of the royal chapel of Tickhill, rector of Bury, Arncliffe and Westbourne, and so on. One of Pope John XXII's letters says that John was appointed canon of Lincoln in 1320 at the request of his kinsmen Edward II and Philip V of France (John's fourth cousin) and their queens. Edward II acknowledged John as 'cousin' on occasion, and in August 1310, sent him to the Curia with Boniface and George of Saluzzo, John's uncles (Alesia's brothers) and fellow clerics, whom Edward II also often acknowledged as his relatives. [12]

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says that John was still alive in 1375, but then, as the ODNB also says that Maud, Lady Burnell was the daughter of Earl Richard when she was certainly his sister (as proved by an entry on the Close Roll of 1283 regarding her marriage and a petition of her daughter Maud Haudlo in about 1330), it is hardly to be trusted on this point. Master John de Arundel in fact was dead by June 1331, when Pope John XXII provided other men, including Edward III's former tutor Richard de Bury, to his vacant benefices. [13] The confusion arises from Earl Richard's grandson and namesake Earl Richard of Arundel's will of 5 December 1375, which mentions "my dear uncle Sir John Arundell." [14] The identity of this John is uncertain, but it definitely wasn't the cleric John, who would have been an unlikely eighty-five years old in 1375. Given that no less a person than Pope John XXII informed numerous men that Master John was dead in June 1331, we may safely assume that he was dead in June 1331. The 'Sir John' of the 1375 will may have been an illegitimate son of Earl Richard, and perhaps born near the end of Richard's life in 1302, given that he was still alive in 1375.

Alice, Lady Segrave
Probably the second daughter of Earl Richard and Countess Alesia, and named in her father's inquisition post mortem as holding two parts of a messuage in Upton, Shropshire by his gift. Alice married Stephen, Lord Segrave, son of John, Lord Segrave (born 1256), whom Edward II appointed 'keeper of the land of Scotland', and Christiana de Plessetis. Stephen was probably born in 1285, as he was said to be forty at the time of his father's death in September 1325, and he and Alice had two sons: John, the elder and his father's heir, born in 1315, and Stephen. [15] Stephen the elder was an adherent of Earl Thomas of Lancaster in the first few years of Edward II's reign, but had switched sides to the king by the time of his campaign against the Contrariants in 1321/22, and in January 1321 was one of the men Edward sent to negotiate a new peace treaty with Robert Bruce. Stephen's brother-in-law Edmund, earl of Arundel granted manors in Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire to Stephen's father John for him to regrant them to Alice and Stephen. [16]

Stephen Segrave had the misfortune to be constable of the Tower of London at the time that Roger Mortimer escaped in August 1323; he and "many others" at the Tower were said to have been "poisoned by artifice," i.e. sedated by Mortimer. Stephen was replaced as constable by Walter Stapeldon, bishop of Exeter, and although he was said to be "seriously ill" from the sedatives, Stephen and his father had to acknowledge a liability to pay Edward II 10,000 marks in exchange for a pardon, which came on 1 June 1324. [17] The two men died in 1325 in Gascony, where they were serving Edward II during the War of Saint-Sardos, John on 3 September and Stephen shortly before 12 December, leaving his ten-year-old son John as his heir. John the father sent a letter from Gascony to Hugh Despenser the Younger in early November 1324, which began "To the honourable and wise man and his very dear lord and cousin*, if it please him, his John, lord of Segrave, greetings, honours and as much very dear affection as he can give," a typically sycophantic way of addressing the powerful royal favourite to which even Despenser's social superiors the earls of Kent and Surrey were not immune. [18]

* As far as I can work out, Despenser and Segrave were third cousins or thereabouts; John's great-grandmother was Rohese Despenser.

In early March 1327, at the beginning of Edward III's reign, wardship of Alice and Stephen's son John was granted to Edward II's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton, earl of Norfolk, and sometime between then and 1336 Norfolk arranged John's marriage to his elder daughter, and ultimately his sole heir, Margaret. Marriage to a king's niece and granddaughter was an excellent match for John Segrave and considerably less brilliant for Margaret, but this is altogether typical of her father (as Brad Verity has pointed out in an article for Foundations, Thomas of Brotherton rarely acted in the best interests of himself and his family). John and Margaret had a son, John, who died young but who might otherwise have married the great heiress Blanche of Lancaster - they were betrothed by 4 May 1347, and isn't it fascinating to contemplate how different English history would be if Blanche had married John Segrave instead of John of Gaunt - and a daughter Elizabeth born in 1338, who married John, Lord Mowbray and had children. [19]

Alice, Lady Segrave, née de Arundel, was accused in 1334 of entering an enclosure in Sherwood Forest with her greyhounds and poaching deer [20] - like father, like daughter - and died on 7 February 1340 (the date was discovered by Douglas Richardson in the registers of Chaucombe Priory).

Margaret le Boteler (Botiller)

Supposedly the wife of William le Boteler or Botiller of Wem in Shropshire, but there is no contemporary evidence to prove that Earl Richard had a daughter named Margaret, only family pedigrees of later centuries (one of which calls her the daughter of 'Willm. Erle of Arundell') and William le Botiller's wife is not named as Margaret in any source I've seen. (I haven't seen any source which names his wife at all.) Assuming that the tradition of her parentage is correct, one might speculate that Margaret was the youngest of Earl Richard and Countess Alesia's children, as her (supposed) husband William le Boteler was born on 8 September 1298, and was succeeded by his son, another William, in late 1361. [21]

Sources

1) Thomas Wright, ed., The roll of arms, of the princes, barons, and knights who attended King Edward I to the siege of Caerlaverock, in 1300, pp. 21-22.

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18 February, 2010

(No, not Isabella and Mortimer.) I thought it was time to revive an occasional feature on the blog, where I take a look at some of the less well-known noblewomen of Edward II's era. Today, it's Isabella Mortimer, Lady Fitzalan and aunt of the Roger Mortimer of Edward II's reign, who I feel deserves some attention. I like Isabella a lot, somehow; she's feisty and appealing, a woman who married twice to please herself and petitioned Edward I successfully to grant her custody of some of her underage son's inheritance. But then, given her family background, she was never going to be a shrinking violet.

Isabella was probably the eldest child of Roger Mortimer of Wigmore and Maud de Braose, and was born in or about 1248. Her father was the son of Llywelyn the Great's daughter Gwladys Ddu and was only about sixteen or seventeen when Isabella was born - his date of birth is estimated as 1231/32 - and her mother was one of the four daughters of William de Braose, hanged by Llywelyn in 1230 for his adultery with Llywelyn's wife Joan. Isabella's siblings included: Edmund, who died in 1304, father of the Roger Mortimer who was Edward II's nemesis; Roger of Chirk, justiciar of Wales, who died imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1326 at a pretty advanced age; and Margaret, who married Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford. Roger Mortimer, Isabella's father, is perhaps most famous for sending Simon de Montfort's head and genitals to his wife Maud after the battle of Evesham in 1265; her brothers were instrumental in the capture and death of their father's first cousin Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last Welsh prince of Wales, on 11 December 1282, weeks after Roger Mortimer's death.

Unfortunately, some accounts of Isabella Mortimer - her Wikipedia page for one, but also more reputable printed sources - confuse events of her life by conflating her with another lady. This was Isabel d'Aubigny, countess of Arundel, who was born around 1228 as the daughter of William de Warenne, earl of Surrey and Maud, daughter of William le Marshal, earl of Pembroke. Isabel was the elder sister of John de Warenne, earl of Surrey (1231-1304) and married Hugh d'Aubigny, earl of Arundel (Isabella Mortimer's husband John Fitzalan was the grandson of Hugh d'Aubigny's sister, yet another Isabel). Hugh died in 1243, leaving Isabel a childless widow of about fifteen. She appears frequently in the chancery rolls of Henry III and Edward I's reigns, and it was she, not Isabella Mortimer as sometimes stated, who was the guardian of the earl of Surrey's children - her nephew and nieces - and keeper of the castles of Portchester and Farnham. [1] Countess Isabel died in November 1282.

As a married woman and a widow Isabella Mortimer continued to use her maiden name, which is extremely unusual and, I can only assume, reflects her pride in her natal family. [2] Isabella's first husband John Fitzalan was lord of Clun and Oswestry and an important Marcher lord as her father was, and was born in September 1246 as the son of Maud de Verdon and John Fitzalan (1223-1267), who fought for King Henry III against Simon de Montfort at the battle of Lewes in 1264 - the Fitzalans were royalists during the baronial struggles of the 1260s, as the Mortimers also were. Isabella and John Fitzalan had at least three children: Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel (February 1267-January 1302); Maud, Lady Burnell; and an obscure son called John who is named as the earl of Arundel's brother in a 1295 letter of the earl of Warwick. [3] Although they held the castle and honour of Arundel, Isabella and her husband were not earl and countess of Arundel, as secondary sources frequently state; the title was revived for their son Richard in about 1291, a few years after the death of the dowager countess, Isabel d'Aubigny.

John Fitzalan died on 18 March 1272 at the age of only twenty-five, leaving as his heir his and Isabella's five-year-old son Richard. Isabella had married her second husband Sir Ralph Arderne by 1 April 1283. [4] The Complete Peerage says that the couple married 'before 1273', but this is incorrect: Ralph Arderne was still married to his previous wife in August 1275*, an inquisition of June 1276 calls Isabella Mortimer 'late the wife of John Fitzalan' with no mention of Ralph Arderne, and as Fitzalan died in 1272, it seems unlikely that she would have married again 'before 1273'. [5] Ralph Arderne was lord of Horndon in Essex and either he or his namesake father was sheriff of that county in the 1250s; a son, Thomas, was named as Ralph's heir in August 1272, and a Ralph Arderne, probably another son, was summoned to go against the Scots in 1298. An inquisition of the 1260s mentions a 'Dame Erneburg Crue, late the wife of Ralph de Arderne', presumably Ralph's mother or stepmother. [6]

* Confusion arises because a) Ralph Arderne's first wife was yet another Isabel and b) she was the widow of a man called 'John son of Alan de Wolverton', and the name of Isabella Mortimer's first husband John Fitzalan is usually given in the English translation of the chancery rolls as 'John son of Alan' (which is annoying and confusing, because Fitzalan had become the family surname and was no longer a patronymic).

Isabella was married to her third husband Sir Robert Hastang or Hastings, named as lord of Boxted in Essex in 1261 and as lord of La Desirée in 1301, by 6 June 1287 [7]; the Complete Peerage says the couple married privately in Poling, Sussex on 2 September 1285, which may be true, but unfortunately it doesn't cite a source. The Complete Peerage also says that Isabella had to pay a fine of £1000 to the king for marrying without royal licence, which is not true: her father Roger Mortimer bought the rights to her re-marriage from Henry III, and although Edward I temporarily seized Isabella's lands and goods after she married Robert, he returned them on learning that Isabella's marriage did not belong to him and that Isabella had "made fine with the executors" of her father's will for marrying. A Robert Hastings, either Isabella's third husband or his son, appears at the end of Edward I's reign and beginning of Edward II's as constable of Roxburgh Castle, and a 'Richard, son of Robert Hastang' appears in 1292. [8] Whether Isabella had children with her second and third husbands, I don't know.Isabella's son Richard Fitzalan was only five when his father died, which meant a long minority of sixteen years until he came of age. Henry III granted an income of £100 yearly from Richard's lands and castles to his maternal grandfather Roger Mortimer. [9] Isabella Mortimer herself requested that she be appointed keeper of the castle and manor of Oswestry during her son's minority, which Edward I granted on 28 April 1279, and on 27 May 128o she was also appointed keeper of the castle and honour of Arundel, the centrepiece of her son's inheritance - though she was replaced at both Oswestry and Arundel by her brother Edmund Mortimer in August 1282. Isabella requested in about 1280 that "the king give her grace of her scutage as she has defended the March as much as her neighbours, and if it is granted she will repair the castle of Oswestry"; Edward I refused, but evidently she thought it was worth a shot. [10]

Richard Fitzalan, aged seventeen, petitioned Edward I in 1284, asking the king to investigate encroachments on the lands of his inheritance and to ensure that they were returned to the state in which his father John left them. An intriguing part of the subsequent inquisition says "Sir John de Sancto Johanne joined a duel of robbers in his court of Halfnaked within the hundred of Boxe, after Richard Fitz Aleyn came into the king's wardship, and never did so before that time." [11] Unfortunately, it seems as though Isabella Mortimer herself may have been partly to blame for allowing her son's inheritance to go to rack and ruin: she was accused of allowing his park of 'Whichamund' to fall into decay, and she and Albinus de Bivery, keeper of the manor of South Stoke two miles from Arundel, were accused of permitting each other "mutual trespass." [12] It may be significant that Richard Fitzalan had three daughters but named none of them after his mother. (For that matter, none of his daughters was called Maud, the name of both his grandmothers.)

Edward I's kinsman Count Amadeus V of Savoy was appointed keeper of the castle and honour of Arundel in June 1278, until he was replaced by Isabella Mortimer two years later. [13] I wonder if it was during this period that Richard Fitzalan's marriage to Alesia di Saluzzo - the great-granddaughter of Count Amadeus IV of Savoy and thus a close relative of the fifth Amadeus - was arranged. Two of Alesia's aunts, Alesia and Agnese, had also married into England a few years before, to the earl of Lincoln and Lord Vescy respectively. Richard and Alesia seem to have married in November 1282, when he was fifteen and she probably the same age or a little younger.

Isabella Mortimer was dead by 1 April 1292, when an entry on the Fine Roll mentions the executors of her will and says that her widower Robert Hastings had been granted permission, at the request of Edward II's sister Margaret, to pay off the arrears of Isabella's debts to the king at twenty pounds a year. [14] (The Complete Peerage, determined to get the facts of Isabella's life wrong, claims that she was living in 1300 and that it was Robert Hastings who was dead on 1 April 1292 - a misreading of the entry on the Fine Roll.) Her daughter-in-law Alesia, countess of Arundel, died later the same year, and her formidable mother Maud de Braose outlived her by nine years, dying in March 1301 when she must have been well into her seventies. There would be much conflict over the years between Isabella's brother Roger Mortimer of Chirk and her nephew Roger Mortimer of Wigmore on one side, and her grandson Edmund, earl of Arundel on the other. I don't have the space to go into it here, but a letter of Edmund written on 4 June 1321 gives some flavour of the distrust between them: he suspected his kinsman Mortimer of Wigmore of wanting to steal some money he had deposited with the burgesses of Shrewsbury, and told them "we do not under any circumstances intend that our cousin of Mortimer, who is so close to us in blood, should do us such a great injury, which we have in no way merited." [15] Arundel replaced his grandmother's brother Mortimer of Chirk as justiciar of Wales on 5 January 1322, and if he tried to help his kinsmen in any way when they were sent to the Tower the following month, there is no sign of it. [16] Given that Isabella Mortimer spent most of her life among the ruthless, squabbling Marcher lords, this conflict between her kin might not have surprised or dismayed her, but at least she was spared the knowledge that in November 1326 her nephew Mortimer of Wigmore would have her grandson Edmund executed without a trial.

15 February, 2010

The second and final part of my post about the rebellion in Bristol between 1312 and 1316 (the first part is directly below, or here). In the year 1314, very little happened in Bristol, other than Bartholomew Badlesmere's adherents complaining - as had now become a matter of course - of the mayor John le Taverner's faction ill-treating them. Edward II, his nephew the earl of Gloucester and Badlesmere had little time to devote to the Bristol situation, being too busy preparing to fight in Scotland, and Gloucester of course was killed at Bannockburn that June. Edward's cousin Earl Thomas of Lancaster, after the king's defeat in Scotland, came to dominate the English government, and made his own attempts to solve the long-running dissent in Bristol. He and his ally the earl of Warwick summoned eight representatives of the town to Warwick in the summer of 1315 "to treat of the settlement of such disputes...the king desiring that such dissensions should be allayed." [1] As Edward II could no doubt have predicted, this failed to solve anything.

In June 1316, Edward, or possibly the earl of Lancaster, sent the sheriff of Gloucestershire - Sir Richard de la Ryvere, a retainer of Badlesmere's ally the earl of Pembroke - to arrest John le Taverner and five of his allies, including Robert Martyn, for the death of one Alexander Vilers, killed during the riots in Bristol. Ryvere found the men in the guild hall, where "Robert de Wyldemersh, who called himself bailiff of that town, and the community of the town would not permit that attachment [arrest] to be made, but hindered it wholly." Ryvere returned with the posse of the county to arrest Taverner and the others, and now Wyldemersh too, but found that the gates of Bristol were closed against him "and the whole community raised in war against the king, having associated with them a multitude of malefactors from Bayonne and Wales." They had drained the castle ditch, destroyed the castle mill, made a ditch "before the castle gate of the breadth and depth of 24 feet" and strengthened it with a pele tower, and set up siege-engines throughout Bristol to attack the castle.

Despite the intense provocation of the mayor's faction "retaining the town against the king and preparing other things in express rebellion against him with banners raised" - and despite the fact that Theobald de Verdon's abduction of the king's niece Elizabeth de Burgh from Bristol Castle in early 1316 can only have increased Edward II's exasperation with the whole situation - Edward was still determined to "recall the community to obedience by gentle means." On 20 June 1316, he appointed his kinsman the earl of Pembroke, William Inge, John Mutford and John del Isle to go to Bristol, investigate the disturbances and recall the commonalty to their obedience to the king - and, if they refused, to punish them. [2] The author of the Vita Edwardi Secundi, who probably came from the south-west of England and knew the situation well, points out Edward's forbearance: "For the king thought it better to exact a moderate penalty from the lawbreakers if they should be willing to comply, then by taking full vengeance to destroy a good town."

According to the Vita, the earl of Pembroke told the mayor's faction to hand over Taverner and his allies, saying "I promise that if you do this, the lord king will be easy with you and you will find mercy." He received the reply "We were not authors of this wrong; we have not failed the lord king in anything. Certain men strove to take away our rights and we, as proper, strove to defend them. Therefore if the lord king will remit his penalties, if he will grant us life and limb and rents and property, we will obey him as lord and do whatever he wishes; otherwise we shall continue as we have begun, and defend our liberties and privileges to the death." (The Vita's account of the Bristol rebellion, rather simplistically, focuses on the mayor's clique trying to stop other burgesses enjoying the same rights they did; Badlesmere is barely mentioned.)

Pembroke wrote to Edward, who, "hearing of their stubbornness and thinking that this was a bad example, ordered the town to be besieged, and not left until the besieged had been taken." Pembroke did not participate in the siege himself but returned to the king at Westminster, leaving Badlesmere, with the aid of Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, Lord Berkeley's son and heir Maurice, Edward II's then chamberlain John Charlton, John Wilington and others including the ever-useful William Montacute - who had rescued Badlesmere's sister-in-law Maud Clifford from the clutches of John the Irishman some months before - to attack Bristol. The siege began on about 19 July, Maurice Berkeley guarding the sea approaches, the others attacking by land and some of Badlesmere's men helping from within Bristol castle, with Badlesmere in overall charge (in theory if not in practice; he wasn't much of a soldier). [3]

The Vita (p. 73) describes subsequent events: "Siege was laid to the town forthwith, fortifications and siegeworks made...There were also in the castle which lies over against the town, men assaulting it with mangonels and other engines...a mangonel of the castle, vigorously handled, beat down the walls and buildings." The siege lasted about a week, and the Bristolians surrendered on 26 July 1316. They sent Edward II a letter of submission, which began "To their most excellent and revered lord, Lord Edward, by the grace of God illustrious king of England, and to his most honourable and wise council, the community of the town of Bristol, all the faithful service, due submission, reverence and honour of which they are capable." [4]

Edward duly pardoned all but three of the townsmen of Bristol (one of whom was called Clement Turtle) on payment of a fine of 2000 marks, of which Badlesmere received 1000 marks for his expenses, and restored the liberty of the town. The three men not pardoned were the former mayor John le Taverner, his son Thomas, and Robert Martyn, who sought sanctuary in a Bristol church then abjured the realm. [5] So in the end, everything turned out all right - and how often can you say that in Edward II's reign? - even for the three men not pardoned. The Taverners and Martyn petitioned Edward for restitution in October 1321, with impeccable timing: Edward was just about to besiege Batholomew Badlesmere's castle of Leeds in Kent, as Badlesmere had joined the Contrariants and become the king's latest worst enemy. Wherever they had fled, the three men obviously knew this, and told Edward they had only abjured the realm out of fear "of being put in the keeping of Sir Bartholomew, in which they would have been dead and maimed" and that they "were forced to abjure because Sir Bartholomew wrongfully sued them for trespass and felony of which they were not culpable." Edward pardoned the three for all wrong-doing, allowed them to return to England and restored them to their goods, etc. [6] Around this time, the king also pardoned a group of men imprisoned for abducting Badlesmere's wife Margaret at Cheshunt in 1319 and holding her to ransom. [7]

Bartholomew Badlesmere had been replaced as constable of Bristol Castle by Hugh Despenser the Younger on 1 October 1320, though Despenser - who needed to remain at court, being the king's chamberlain and favourite - usually appointed deputies. The entry mentions that the castle porter got wages of two pence a day, that the two watchmen received one and a half pence a day each with an extra quarter of a pence each for doing the night shift, that the forester of Kingswood received seven and a half pence a day, and that the 'keeper of the king's seaboard of Bristol' was entitled to twenty-six shillings and eight pence a year for his clothing allowance. [8]

12 February, 2010

Here's the first part of two posts about a long-running rebellion in Bristol which began in 1312 and came to a head in July 1316, when Edward II ordered the town to be besieged. The story really starts at the beginning of Edward II's reign on 21 August 1307, with his appointment of Bartholomew, Lord Badlesmere, then probably in his early thirties, brother-in-law of Lord Clifford and retainer of Edward II's nephew the earl of Gloucester, as constable of the royal castle of Bristol. [1] Edward replaced Badlesmere as constable of Bristol with his steward Sir Edmund Mauley on 20 January 1312, shortly after Piers Gaveston's return from his third exile; the king changed the custody of several royal castles at this time to men whose loyalty he was certain of, and Badlesmere, associated with the earl of Gloucester - generally a supporter of his uncle Edward, but involved in the Ordainers' plans to capture Piers Gaveston - was not one of them. "To the king's great amazement," however, Badlesmere refused to relinquish control of the castle, despite Edward threatening him with forfeiture in February and April 1312 unless he did so. In July that year - with Piers Gaveston dead - Edward gave up and formally restored custody of Bristol Castle to Badlesmere, and also appointed him keeper of the town of Bristol. [2]

What led to unrest in Bristol in the first place is very difficult to ascertain, but by 1312 the important men of the town, the mayor, bailiffs, burgesses and wealthy merchants, had divided themselves into two factions, pro- and anti-Badlesmere, the latter group much bigger than the former. An early sign of trouble comes on 8 March 1312, when Edward II forbade the mayor, bailiffs and men of Bristol from going to London to appear before Badlesmere's lord the earl of Gloucester to "answer for certain contempts wherewith they are charged, as they have given security to the said earl to do, as the king considers this may prejudice him and his royal dignity." [3] (At this time, Edward had moved the government to York to avoid the Ordainers, then gathering in London to plot their next moves against Piers Gaveston.) On 21 July 1312, nine days before he formally restored Bristol Castle to Badlesmere's custody, Edward II took twenty-one men of the anti-Badlesmere faction under his protection. [4]

Events of the rest of 1312 are somewhat confusing: Edward removed the custody of the town of Bristol from Badlesmere on 12 August to the 'mayor, bailiffs and commonalty' of the town and ordered Badlesmere not to "meddle with the custody thereof" or to "permit any injury to be inflicted on the burgesses," or give them reason to "complain of his harshness." A little later, however, the king changed his mind and restored custody of the town to Badlesmere, and all these writs mention the 'dissensions' which had arisen between Badlesmere and the men of Bristol. [5] Around this time, the burgesses appointed John le Taverner of the anti-Badlesmere faction as mayor of the town, and told Edward that they were unable to present Taverner to Badlesmere as they were meant to do because Badlesmere was not resident in the castle. At the beginning of November 1312, Edward II was forced to intercede again and order the mayor and bailiffs to obey Badlesmere or his attorney, as the mayor's faction were pretending that a mandate sent to them on 30 September re-appointing Badlesmere as keeper of castle and town did not apply to them because it did not mention the 'commonalty' of the town, whereas the mandate of 12 August ordering Badlesmere not to meddle with the custody of the town did. [6] Basically, Badlesmere was having huge problems imposing his authority on the burgesses, who were coming up with all kinds of excuses not to have to obey him or take his position seriously.

In mid-January 1313, Edward II was forced once again to order the mayor and bailiffs of Bristol to obey Badlesmere, and told them he would also send commissioners to investigate the situation and enquire into the 'dissensions'. This latest crisis was prompted by John le Taverner, the new mayor, and his faction, which included the former mayor William de Axe, William Clif, Thomas de la Grave, Robert Martyn, Thomas Uppedich, Philip le Spicer and dozens of others. They had expelled from the liberty of Bristol, and stolen the goods of, thirteen burgesses of the town, "asserting that [they] were adherents to Bartholomew de Badlesmere, and seeking to oppress them for that reason": William Randolf, John Snow, John du Celer, Peter le Fraunceys ('the Frenchman'), Laurence Cary or Gary, John de London, Raymond Frombaud, Robert de Otery, Thomas le Spicer, William de Kerdyf (Cardiff), Richard de Welles, Martin Horncastle and Adam Wylishote or Welyshote. The earl of Gloucester wrote to his uncle the king on 28 February 1313 on Badlesmere's behalf, asking Edward to command the commonalty of Bristol to restore these men's rights and privileges in the town, restore their goods to them, and "to be obedient to Sir Bartholomew de Badlesmere...and to let his people go and dwell in the town without damage." Edward duly ordered the anti-Badlesmere faction, on pain of forfeiture, to do so and sent the sheriff of Gloucestershire to Bristol to make sure they obeyed, telling them that if they refused, "the king will grievously proceed against them." He also ordered them to to present themselves before himself and his council on "Sunday in Mid-Lent...to certify the king and council of their action in this matter." [7]

These measures also failed to work, and on 29 April 1313 Edward II took the town of Bristol into his own hands, though Bartholomew Badlesmere remained keeper of castle and town. The following day, Edward complained that Badlesmere's adherents had not been restored to the liberty of the town nor had their goods and chattels returned, "in manifest contempt of the king," and ordered the sheriff of Gloucestershire to arrest and bring before the king and his council John le Taverner, William de Axe, Robert Martyn and thirty-two named others. [8] By 9 July 1313, these men were imprisoned in the Tower of London, though Edward relented and ordered the constable of the Tower to release them "fifteen days after the end of three weeks from Midsummer." The king also ordered the sheriffs of Gloucestershire, Dorset and Somerset "to compel the mayor and commonalty of the town of Bristol to obey Bartholomew de Badlesmere...[and] to commit to prison all persons who obstruct him and also all rebels," and once again ordered the restitution of the pro-Badlesmere burgesses. Even this was ineffective, and on 18 August 1313 Edward ordered a frustrated and angry earl of Gloucester and Badlesmere not to besiege Bristol or to do "aught else to the injury of the king's peace, as the king understands that he [Gloucester] intends doing on account of the dissensions in that town." [9]

While John le Taverner was mayor, from autumn 1312 to May 1313, the anti-Badlesmere faction stepped up their opposition to him (Badlesmere). In a street opposite the castle called Wynchestrete, they built a fortified wall "of stone and lime" and from behind it shot arrows, crossbow bolts "and other harmful things" into the castle and refused to allow the garrison to leave the castle at any time even to get food and other necessary provisions. They claimed later, however, that they had built the wall not to attack the castle but "for the safer keeping of the town, and not to inflict any harm on the lord king's said castle." They also stepped up their harassment of Badlesmere's adherents in the town: several of the latter, including William Randolf, John Snow, William de Kerdyf and John de London, complained that their houses had been broken into, their goods stolen, their servants assaulted, and themselves, their wives, children and servants expelled from Bristol altogether. Not surprisingly, the anti-Badlesmere faction indignantly refuted this, saying that "certain men of the aforesaid community, their [Badlesmere's adherents] well-wishers, having understood that certain stupid people living in the said town wished to harm the said William [Randolf] and his aforesaid colleagues, they warned them of this in friendly fashion. And the same William Randolf and his aforesaid colleagues, for that reason, and not from fear of that community, or through any compulsion, left the said town of their own will." Badlesmere's supporters also accused John le Taverner's faction of keeping the profits which should have gone to Badlesmere as keeper of the castle and town, stealing wine and victuals purchased for him, and assaulting his servants. [10]

On 8 November 1313, Edward II took twenty-five of Badlesmere's adherents and some of his own serjeants, trying to restore order in Bristol, into his protection against the mayor and his clique, "under pain of forfeiture of life and limb, and of all else that can be forfeited to the king." Two days later took the town into his own hands again and re-granted custody of it to Badlesmere. [11] The situation in Bristol was nowhere near resolved, however, and in fact it gravely deteriorated when Edward sent commissioners to the town to assess the tallage (the king and council in December 1312 had ordered a tallage of a fifteenth on goods and a tenth on rents to be levied on demesne lands and boroughs). It didn't help matters that one of the commissioners was the elderly Lord Berkeley, as the lords of Berkeley had an ongoing feud with the burgesses of Bristol over jurisdiction of the Redcliff district. The Vita Edwardi Secundi gives a detailed account of the riots which followed the commissioners' arrival in Bristol: "the senseless crowd turned to rioting, and the whole populace trembled from fear of the disorder. Returning once more they entered the hall with a large following and there turned their right to wrong. For with fists and sticks they began to attack the crowd opposed to them, and in that day nearly twenty men lost their lives for nothing.* A very natural fear seized noble and commoner alike, so that many leapt out of the top-storey windows into the street, and seriously injured their legs or thighs as they fell to the ground." The mayor had to rescue the commissioners from the mob.

* This observation is spot-on: the names of nineteen men killed during the riots in Bristol are recorded on the Patent Roll. [12]

Coming soon, what happened next in Bristol: the earls of Lancaster and Warwick intervene to no effect and Edward II attempts to solve the problem with "gentle means" and diplomacy, but eventually gives in and orders the town to be besieged.

07 February, 2010

Several abductions of noble ladies, and subsequent forced marriages, which took place during the reigns of Edward II and Edward III are pretty well-known: Elizabeth de Burgh by Theobald de Verdun in 1316, her sister Eleanor Despenser by William la Zouche in 1329, their niece Margaret Audley by Ralph Stafford in 1336, and Alice de Lacy by Hugh Frene that same year. (Alice de Lacy's grandmother Maud Longespee, née Clifford, was abducted and forcibly married to John, Lord Giffard in about 1270, near the end of Henry III's reign.) Here's some info about yet another abduction which took place in 1315, considerably less well-known than those above, involving Maud, Lady Clifford and a shadowy, or rather, murky character called John le Ireys, John 'the Irishman'.

Some background: Maud Clifford was born around 1279 as the daughter* of Thomas de Clare (c. 1245-1287), lord of Thomond, and was the sister of Margaret, Lady Badlesmere and the first cousin of the earl of Gloucester killed at Bannockburn and his sisters Eleanor, Margaret and Elizabeth. She married Robert, Lord Clifford and had four children: Roger, Lord Clifford, a Contrariant wounded while fighting against the royal army at Boroughbridge in March 1322 and subsequently executed at the tower in York which has borne his name ever since, still only at the beginning of his twenties and unmarried; Idonea (d. 1365), who married Henry, Lord Percy and was the grandmother of the first earl of Northumberland and the first earl of Worcester; Robert, Lord Clifford (1305-1344), who married Isabel, sister of Thomas, Lord Berkeley and was the ancestor of the later lords of Clifford; Margaret (d. 1382), who married Sir Peter Mauley, whose father Peter claimed in about 1322 that he was captured by Margaret Clifford's uncle Bartholomew Badlesmere and forced to agree to the marriage of his son and Margaret and to make a recognisance of a staggering £20,000 to Bartholomew. [1]

[* I always thought Maud was the elder daughter and that Margaret Badlesmere was born about 1287, but a petition presented by Margaret in 1327 claimed that she, Margaret, was the elder. The petition can be seen here.]

Maud's husband Robert, Lord Clifford was born in April 1274 as the son and heir of Isabel Vipont of Westmorland and Sir Roger Clifford, who drowned in November 1282 when Edward I's bridge across the Menai Straits from the Welsh mainland to Anglesey collapsed. (Henry II's mistress Rosamund Clifford, by the way, was the sister of Robert's great-great-grandfather Walter.) The Cliffords were, with the Percys, probably the most important family in the north of England at this time, and were also influential in the Welsh Marches. Robert embarked young on a highly successful military career, taking part in Edward I's Scottish wars of the 1290s and early 1300s, and Edward II appointed him marshal of England and chief guardian of Scotland early in his reign. The author of the Roll of Arms of Caerlaverock - about the noblemen who took part in Edward I's siege of Caerlaverock Castle in 1300 - wrote particularly flatteringly about Robert even by the standards of the poem, in which all the English earls, barons and knights present at the siege, not to mention the king and his sixteen-year-old son Edward of Caernarfon, are marvellously brave, valiant, astonishingly handsome and just all-round wonderful. The poet says of Robert "If I were a young maiden, I would give him my heart and body, So good is his fame" (Si je estois une pucellette, Je li donroie quer e cors, Tant est de li bons li recors; thanks to Brad Verity for bringing this passage to my attention) and declares "I well know that I have given him no praise of which he is not worthy. For he exhibits as good proofs of wisdom and prudence as any I see." [2] Robert Clifford was one of the men who besieged Piers Gaveston at Scarborough Castle in May 1312, but was for the most part loyal to Edward II and fought for him at Bannockburn; he was killed in the battle, aged forty, most probably during the earl of Gloucester's early assault on Robert Bruce's schiltrons. Robert Clifford was the second highest-ranking Englishman, after Gloucester, to fall at Bannockburn, and Bruce courteously sent his body back to England with full honours. On 24 September 1314, exactly three months after his death in battle, Edward II ordered the 'keeper of the king's victuals' at Carlisle Castle to "deliver a tun of wine to the executors of the will of Sir Robert de Clifford, who is with God, for the interment of Sir Robert's corpse." [3] Robert was almost certainly buried at Shap Abbey.

John le Ireys or John 'the Irishman', abductor of Lady Clifford, was a valet in Edward II's household and apparently high in the king's favour; Edward spent the large sum of six pounds on medicines for John when he was dying at the Gilbertine priory of St Katherine in Lincoln in 1317. [4] John was, like countless other young men of the era, capable of the most horrific violence: in 1308, he was one of eight people (one of them a woman, in fact) accused of torturing a man named John de Asshelond in Somerset by tying him to a table, "piercing his feet with a hot iron" and burning his face down to the bone in five places with the same iron, until he agreed to sign a bond for a hundred pounds to one of the torturers. [5] Despite this, Edward II saw fit to appoint John as custodian of Barnard Castle in County Durham, late of the earl of Warwick, on 15 August 1315, just three days after Warwick's death. (Edward replaced John with Henry Fitzhugh on 18 December 1315, after the abduction of Maud Clifford.) [6] John was said to be "on the king's service in the marches of Scotland" at various times in 1315, and eighty "horsemen of [his] lineage and alliance" were said to be on their way from Ireland that June to aid him, but had been "disturbed at sea for lack of ships." [7]

Edward II was at Clipstone in Nottinghamshire with Queen Isabella on 12 November 1315 (their son John of Eltham was born nine months later, incidentally) when he heard the news that John the Irishman and "many others" had abducted Maud Clifford at Bowes, and also stolen her goods. Bowes is less than five miles from Barnard Castle, where John was custodian, and as far as I can tell belonged in 1315 to the earl of Richmond, Edward II's first cousin. John and his men took Maud to Barnard Castle; what happened to her there is uncertain, and I can only hope that her ordeal wasn't too terrible and that she wasn't raped, although this may be a forlorn wish. The Scalacronica says tersely that "John the Irishman ravished the Lady Clifford" (Johan le Irroys ravist la dame de Clifforde), although the Anglo-Norman word ravir can also be translated as 'abduct', 'snatch' or 'take by force' as well as 'ravish' or 'rape', and the men who temporarily freed Edward II from Berkeley in 1327 were also said to have ravi him from Lord Berkeley's custody. [8] Whatever else happened, however, John did not force Maud to marry him.

John the Irishman may have been in Edward II's favour, but the king was hardly going to allow him to go around abducting noblewomen, and sent Sir William Montacute to Maud's aid. Montacute served as steward of Edward's household from 1316 to 1318 and then as steward of Gascony, was said by the Vita Edwardi Secundi to be the "commander of the royal cavalry," and played an important role in the campaign against Llywelyn Bren in early 1316, so was clearly a highly competent soldier and was also a man the king had known for many years and trusted. Edward sent three other knights - one of them was Sir Robert de Welle, of whom more later - and thirty-six squires and men-at-arms "to make rescue of the lady de Clifford, captured by John le Irreis." William Montacute "returned thence to the king at Clipston with the said knights and men-at-arms, having made the rescue aforesaid," on 6 December. [9] Unfortunately, I don't have any details of how they effected the rescue - whether they had to besiege the castle or whether John gave Maud up without a fight. Four days after sending Montacute, Welle and the others to the north, Edward ordered Maud's brother-in-law Bartholomew, Lord Badlesmere, her first cousin John, Lord Mowbray (son of her father's sister Rohese de Clare), John de Doncaster and Thomas de Sheffield to 'hear and determine' (oyer et terminer) what had happened. [10]

Despite this lawless act, John the Irishman subsequently remained in Edward II's household and in his favour - though he did remove him as custodian of Barnard Castle - and Edward was prepared to shell out large sums of money on medicines in 1317 to try to save his life. John couldn't have known it in 1315, but some years later Maud Clifford, already a wealthy and well-connected woman, would become even more attractive as a wife; the deaths of her childless brother Gilbert in 1307, her other brother Richard in 1318, and her little nephew Thomas in 1321 meant that she and her sister Margaret Badlesmere shared their father's Thomond inheritance between them. Maud ended up marrying her knight in shining armour: Sir Robert de Welle of Worcestershire, one of the men Edward had sent with William Montacute to rescue her. Maud and Robert were married by 16 December 1315, on which date Edward II took Maud's dower lands, and all the goods in them, into his own hands because the couple had married without his licence. He pardoned them in October 1316 on payment of a £100 fine, and restored all Maud's lands with the issues backdated to the day he had seized them. [11] Maud's son Roger, Lord Clifford appointed his stepfather Robert de Welle as one of his attorneys when he accompanied his uncle Bartholomew Badlesmere overseas in March 1320 (Badlesmere was going to the pope with Hugh Despenser the Elder on Edward II's business), though in fact Robert went abroad himself on pilgrimage the same month and Edward II pardoned him again that July for going overseas contrary to the king's mandate. Edward had granted Roger Clifford and his brother-in-law Henry Percy all the lands of their late fathers in 1318 and 1319, although they were both still underage, "for the defence and safety of the said castles against the Scots, the king's enemies." [12]

Roger Clifford and Bartholomew Badlesmere were executed as Contrariants in March/April 1322, and Margaret Badlesmere was imprisoned until November that year. Robert de Welle, however, remained high in Edward II's favour: he was one of his sister-in-law Margaret Badlesmere's mainpernors in November 1322, the king granted the 'wardship of the hospital of St Nicholas, Pontefract' to Robert Woodhouse at Robert's request the day after his stepson Roger Clifford's execution, and over the next few months pardoned a number of Contrariants also at Robert's request. One of the pardons, of an adherent of Roger Clifford named Sir John Stirkeland, was made "at the request of Hugh le Despenser the younger, and of Robert de Welle," which suggests that Robert was well and truly in favour with the regime. Robert also received the London houses which had formerly belonged to his stepson, and in the summer of 1326 Edward II sent him to Scotland to meet Robert Bruce and discuss the peace treaty between Scotland and England. [13] Margaret Badlesmere's 1327 petition cited above (in which she claimed to be older than her sister Maud) accused Robert of taking her share of the sisters' inheritance "with the aid and maintenance of Hugh le Despenser." Maud Clifford died sometime before 13 March 1327 (when her share of the Thomond inheritance was in the king's hands [14]), having outlived her abductor John the Irishman by a decade; unfortunately I haven't (yet) found the date of Robert de Welle's death, and perhaps because of his closeness to Edward II and the Despensers, I've found him very difficult to trace after their downfall.

03 February, 2010

Because I've really been snowed under at work this week and am now ill, here's a silly post of searches that have hit the blog recently, until I get my act together and write a proper post.

But firstly: a couple of my buddies on Facebook have started a campaign to raise money to protect and preserve Garth Celyn in Abergwyngregyn, North Wales - the home of the last Welsh Princes of Wales in the thirteenth century. If you'd like to make a donation, click here. And here's a link to the Facebook page (which I think you can access even if you're not a member of Facebook).

And secondly, a couple of new blogs to tell you about: the genealogist and historian Brad Verity, whom some of you will already know from soc.genealogy.medieval and his articles for the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, not to mention his brilliantly informative and perceptive comments on this blog lately, has set up his own blog called Royal Descent. Yay! Lots of well-researched and fascinating posts to look forward to. And Edward II's brother-in-law Louis X of France (1289-1316) has been reborn online and has his own blog, the excellently-subtitled General Disgruntlings Of An Agitated Monarch. Edward admits to a sneaking fondness for Louis, whom he knighted in June 1313 and who never invaded his duchy of Gascony and declared war on him like certain other brothers-in-law Edward could mention, and is delighted to welcome him to blogland.

- edward the second of england the juicy bits Edward II's life was all about the juicy bits. No dull bits there at all.

- why did Edward ii have such a problematic reign Short answer: because he was exasperating ed

- how many wifes did King Edward II

Just the one, and in 1325 she claimed to her brother Charles IV and his court that quote "there were 3 of us in the marriage"

And people have been asking since 1327: did queen isabela really murder edward II

If she did, you can bet it didn't go in the: queen isabella 1 family ablum

This blog seems to get far more icky searches than strictly necessary, these being typical examples: can any married man have an affair with his niece and suffocated to death under the buttocks of womens sadistic

- edward ii hates foriegn muck He certainly does! Edward II is a proud, patriotic Englishman. (Albeit one who was born in Wales to a Spanish mother and a mostly French father.)

- Edward II didn't like fight as a kid ? Or as an adult.

- why is edwar secong killing on the stage So that directors can make a big deal out of a red-hot poker.

- Where was St. teresa of portugal born If I had to guess, I'd say Portugal.

- Did Isabella of Castile go to college?

- edward iii and his warning signs not to revolt

- proper way of indicating Edward "II" See that man over there? That's Edward II.

- who have killed Lord Gurney- if you would have his clemency first you must do his bidding

- stephen billington body pics

- robert of artois' rolin in the coronation of Philip VI

And finally, two of the most common searches that hit this blog: connection between Isabella of France and william wallace and did queen isabella have kids with william wallace? How many times do I have to say that there wasn't a connection and no, she didn't? Bloody Braveheart.

Edward's titles, 1312

Edward, par la grace de DIEU, Roi d’Engleterre, seignur d’Irlaunde, ducs d’Aquitaine, & conte de Pontif & de Monstroil
[Edward, by the grace of GOD, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Aquitaine, and Count of Ponthieu and Montreuil]

Edward II's coronation oath: translation

Sire, will you grant and keep and by your oath confirm to the people of England the laws and customs given to them by the previous just and god-fearing kings, your ancestors, and especially the laws, customs, and liberties granted to the clergy and people by the glorious king, the sainted Edward, your predecessor?
I grant and promise them.
Sire, will you in all your judgments, so far as in you lies, preserve to God and Holy Church, and to the people and clergy, entire peace and concord before God?
I will preserve them.
Sire, will you, so far as in you lies, cause justice to be rendered rightly, impartially, and wisely, in compassion and in truth?
I will do so.
Sire, do you grant to be held and observed the just laws and customs that the community of your realm shall determine, and will you, so far as in you lies, defend and strengthen them to the honour of God?
I grant and promise them.

Penny of Edward II's reign

Tomb of Edward II

Amouncement of the birth of Edward III, November 1312

Isabella, by the grace of God, Queen of England, Lady of Ireland, and Duchess of Aquitaine, to our well-beloved the Mayor and aldermen and the commonalty of London, greeting. Forasmuch as we believe that you would willingly hear good tidings of us, we do make known to you that our Lord, of His grace, has delivered us of a son, on the 13th day of November, with safety to ourselves, and to the child. May our Lord preserve you.

Berkeley Castle, scene of Edward II's imprisonment

Letter of Queen Isabella to Edward II, 1314

My very dear and dread Lord, I commend myself to you as humbly as I can. My dear Lord, you have heard how our seneschal and our controller of Ponthieu have come from Ponthieu concerning our affairs; ...I beg you, my gentle Lord, that by this message it may please you to request your chancellor by letter that he may summon those of your council to him and take steps speedily in this matter, according to what he and your council see what is best to do for your honour and profit....May the Holy Spirit keep you, my very dear and dread Lord.

The Vita Edwardi Secundi on Edward II and Piers Gaveston

I do not remember to have heard that one man so loved another. Jonathan cherished David, Achilles loved Patroclus. But we do not read that they were immoderate. Our King, however, was incapable of moderate favour, and on account of Piers was said to forget himself, and so Piers was accounted a sorcerer.